On February 26, 2015, a video was released online by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that showed a group of men destroying important sculptures from the sites of Hatra and Nineveh housed in the Mosul Museum, as well as sculptures at the Assyrian site of Nineveh, also in Mosul, Iraq. The video was subsequently rebroadcast by multiple media agencies around the world. These acts have generated an international outcry, including from organizations that specialize in cultural heritage and the archaeology of the Middle East.
Read the Oriental Institute’s statement on cultural destruction in Iraq
